Threads that make us Laugh, Cry, or Both

[angelfromanotherpin]

1185971551[/unixtime]]Gandalf doesn't "defeat" the balrog, gravity defeats the balrog after a very long fall. Note also that Galdalf also dies.

Unless we assume that Gandalf is lying to seem more impressive, he does report that after the fall, he and the Balrog have an epic chase scene through the bowels of the earth and up a staircase taller than a mountain, followed by a mountaintop battle.

'But what would they say in song? Those that looked up from afar thought that the mountain was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning, they said, smote upon Celebdil, and leaped back broken into tongues of fire. Is not that enough? A great smoke rose about us, vapour and steam. Ice fell like rain. I threw down my enemy and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin.'

Yes, Gandalf dies. Yes, most of Gandalf's magic is not that impressive to look at. Still, when your one-on-one duel can be mistaken for a thunderstorm and your enemy's defeat breaks a mountainside, that's a pretty objective measure of significant badass.

[Jacob_Orlove]

http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php ... br][br]The whole thread is 22 pages long, and I'd advise against subjecting yourself to it, but that one post seemed so out of place for the Wizards boards that I figured I'd link to it here.

[Captain_Bleach]

1185992741[/unixtime]]http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php ... br][br]The whole thread is 22 pages long, and I'd advise against subjecting yourself to it, but that one post seemed so out of place for the Wizards boards that I figured I'd link to it here.

I feel ArcTan's pain.

[Leress]

1185992741[/unixtime]]http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php ... br][br]The whole thread is 22 pages long, and I'd advise against subjecting yourself to it, but that one post seemed so out of place for the Wizards boards that I figured I'd link to it here.

Well a beacon of light does stand out in the darkness...
Here is one

What makes a Fighter Sub-par
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=897929

[Username17]

Ouch. You just hurt my eyes. You walk into a discussion of what makes a Fighter sub-par and you expect... I don't know... someone to make the following points:

• Fighters don't really have an established role outside of combat. There is literally nothing they bring to the table when the ogres aren't attacking that a Rogue or Ranger doesn't do better.
  
  
• In combat, Fighters are pretty amazingly underwhelming. While the top end gets quite ridiculous (giving out literally all of the Fighter bonus feat won't give you victory against a Balor at 20th level, and you only get 11); even at low levels it is pretty sad. Having Dodge, Mobility, and Spring Attack is rather less impressive than just casting web.
  
  
• A class having access to an option is not the same as a character having access to an option. Feat choices that you didn't take might as well not have ever been on your class options for all the difference it makes to your character. A sixth level Fighter has four feats - which is about one feat chain. While he could have chosen one of a dozen feat chains, he only actually chose one. While a Cleric can get up in the morning and reconfigure his spells based on anticipated needs and past experience, a Fighter is stuck with his choices forever.
  
  
• The fact that you can spend resources to partially or completely cover for a weakness does not mean that you don't have that weakness. It means that at the very least you have the weakness "must spend resources". Since the Fighter's basic chasis gives him an attack that is level appropriate at 1st and second level and... nothing else, the Fighter is therefore obligated to spend resources to cover his weaknesses. And past level 2 or so, he actually has all the weaknesses.

---

But what do I get? A bunch of people going off at incredible length about how you could use equipment to get around the limitations of the class. Which seemed highly disengenuous considering that one of the listed limitations was "equipment dependent".

-Username17

[Jacob_Orlove]

I followed the link in the first post about how a riding dog can't actually outfight a fighter, and wow was that argument awful. It basically sums up to "but a fighter could throw a javelin! That's extra attacks!" and then stops the example before the dog gets an AoO on the target standing up from prone.

[Leress]

Let's get rid of cross-classed skills...
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=898065

[Catharz]

Cross-class skills are retarded.

[Leress]

1186170136[/unixtime]]Cross-class skills are retarded.

Yes they are since you pay twice for them (pay twice as much for something that goes half as high)

It is mostly to show the arguments have a good base but then run into this wild tangent that makes little to no sense.

[shirak]

Good ol' RPG.net

Broken 1st level characters :WTF:

and

Stuff you've banned


The second one especially makes me cry man tears.

[RandomCasualty]

1186175480[/unixtime]]
Stuff you've banned


The second one especially makes me cry man tears.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the wildshape/polymorph mechanics yet.

Instead frenzied berserker and psionics tend to be #1.

I can sort of understand that though. The berserker tends to be anti-teamwork and psionics requires a whole book to be read.

I do like this quote though

No, really, most GM's I know who banned Half-orcs did so for mechanical reasons. A raging half-orc barbarian at first level can, potentially, kill up to a 6th level fighter in one blow. (capable of starting with a 20 base strength for +5 damage / to-hit, Rage for an extra +4 str (kicking their bonus damage / to-hit up to +7) Great axe for 1d12 damage, two-handed kicks the bonus up to +10 damage. x3 crit means 3d12 + 30 damage as a 1st level fighter.

Or, dump his BAB into power attack (a whole +1 lost, leaving his to-hit as just +7) to crank out +12 damage, kicking his crit damage up to 3d12 + 36

Yes, it requires rolling a natural 20, but being physically capable of dishing out 72 damage in 1 round at 1st level is the sort of thing that can wreck GM plans.

Oh yeah, that +2 to strength is gamebreaking!

[MrWaeseL]

Stuff you've banned

I...just...but...

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I once played in a game that did cross-class skills as follows:
put points into them at a 1-1 ratio.
you may put up to half max ranks.

It worked fairly well, seeing as every fighter (/main person on watch) had points in both Spot and Listen. It is fairly game-changing, but not game breaking (any more than UMD and Diplomacy already are at least). It was also nice to have a fighter that could heal himself out of combat.

[Leress]

Cleric Revisited...

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... 438[br][br]

[Prak]

yeah, I hate it when people ban stuff just because they don't know how to handle it, or because their imagination is limited to one interpretation... like evil PCs, Frenzied Berserkers and Psionics...

[cthulhu]

Leress's thread makes me cry.

[MrWaeseL]

They gave it a rogue special ability

[Nereas]

Here's one that's pissing me off - Ritual Spellcasting

NightmareX is convinced of his own divinity and some of the others who have the same view sound like bitter writers, hoping to get the crap they didn't get in the book accepted as truth.

It makes me glad I'm a SR4 newbie, that I'm not so bogged down in irrelevant crap like old mechanics and "I've been playing for 17 years".

Frankly, Frank [:bricks:] I don't get how you stay so civil.

[SunTzuWarmaster]

"Miracle 1/day at level 20 is completely unbalanced. This gives clerics way too much power, if they don't already get it from their spells."

You know, other than the fact that they could have it 5 times per day if you gave them back their spellcasting.

[cthulhu]

You are reading it wrong. They still HAVE their spell casting (He notes that tit's no different from the PHB cleric unless noted, and says they get spell casting at level one), though the 20th level power is completely inconsequential, these guys are just nuts from woe to go.

1186487250[/unixtime]]Here's one that's pissing me off - Ritual Spellcasting

NightmareX is convinced of his own divinity and some of the others who have the same view sound like bitter writers, hoping to get the crap they didn't get in the book accepted as truth.

It makes me glad I'm a SR4 newbie, that I'm not so bogged down in irrelevant crap like old mechanics and "I've been playing for 17 years".

Frankly, Frank [:bricks:] I don't get how you stay so civil.

LOLZ

[tzor]

1186487250[/unixtime]]Here's one that's pissing me off - Ritual Spellcasting

Frankly, Frank [:bricks:] I don't get how you stay so civil.

That was ... interesting ... and as someone who has never played shadowrun at all I have to agree. Very civil of you Frank.

[Captain_Bleach]

Besides, why do you need ritual spells to kill one person when nukes,WMDs/other would do, not to mention that if such magic were available, the it would be kept in kept by major powers? You could put that magic to better use. Or am I missing something?

[Nereas]

Well, sorta - Ritual Spellcasting is at a (6-man team power level) really really REALLY good at making heads explode - perhaps the room as well - nice and clean like a scalpel.
It does scale all the way up to apocalyptic but is effectively out of the PC's grasp (requires something like a whole nation in concert) and would get them ganked for trying.
It's (for the PC's at least) a nice tactic, but the price of making it utterly awesome is really high as well - easier to steal a nuke in-game than to get a team of 6 Mages as PC's.

[Leress]

1186487427[/unixtime]]"Miracle 1/day at level 20 is completely unbalanced. This gives clerics way too much power, if they don't already get it from their spells."

You know, other than the fact that they could have it 5 times per day if you gave them back their spellcasting.

Except as noted, the cleric is identical to the cleric in the PHB.

I assume that the spell casting was still there.

[RandomCasualty]

Well is ritual magic actually traceable at all?

I'd think the main advantage of ritual casting is that nobody knows about it. Creating or stealing a nuke is going to leave a paper trail and a lot of people who may know of your plan. Getting a bunch of sorcerers in a basement can be done in secret.

I mean, if you start dropping members of Ares, how do they even know who to retaliate against?